Repost from my group The Middle Path To Health Alliance: This year Im trying something new. A morning ritual. Ive already been doing it, so its not really a new years resolution. But I want to keep it going. About two weeks ago I settled on a combination of little practices that I feel could really make a positive impact in my life. Because its the little things you do consistently that can have the biggest impact. Like, doing the most intense workout ever one time, will do nothing compared to doing a mildly intense workout 3 times a week consistently. Ive designed my morning ritual to help keep my mind fresh, and my mood positive. It is made to be ultra efficient and hit multiple birds with one stone. Heres what I do. Morning pages (Julia Cameron style) This was brought to my attention by Brian Koppelman who has an incredible podcast called The Moment. Its your basic interview style podcast, but Brian is the best interviewer Ive heard. He doesnt agree with his guests just to keep them happy, he challenges them, goes deep, its fun. But Im off topic. Brian also wrote the screenplay for the movie Rounders. And he does lots of stuff in the movie business. He writes a lot. And he mentioned that doing the morning pages that Julia Cameron suggested in her book The Artists Way was like magic for him. I had to try it out. I got the book and Ive been doing morning pages for 43 days now. Heres how it works, its super simple: All you do is get a notebook, and write 3 pages in it every morning. As soon as you can in the morning. Dont think about what youre going to write, dont try to write something fancy. Just brain dump. If you have to write v v v v v v v v la la la la la do do do do blah blah blah then do that. I have. It hasnt lead to any great writing on my part yet, most of it is gibberish, or complaining, or weird tangents. But a few times Ive gotten some insights, not good writing, but insights that stick with me after Im done writing. What the morning pages are to me is a meditation designed to watch your thoughts, and get rid of your filter. Its a challenge to write down exactly what you are thinking, and not filter it. Sometimes thats scary. I can still feel my filter, and I wonder whats behind it. I want to find out. Priming practice (Tony Robbins style) I got this idea from Tony Robbins, who Ive read a lot of his stuff, and Im a big fan of him. But weirdly I got a huge tip from Tony Robbins when he was on Brian Kopplemans podcast (Brian is that good at pulling things out of people.) Anyhow, Tony Robbins says that every morning, he wakes up and does a 10 minute practice. For 3 minutes he thinks about 3 things hes grateful for, and really feels the situation, even if thats just the wind on his face, really get into it. Do 1 minute for each thing youre grateful for. Then he switches to things you want for yourself, not exactly a prayer, but its easiest to think of it that way. Like Please help me focus today, to stay positive, to keep going when things get tough. Please help me stay happy, healthy, strong, and only get better. Whatever you want. Do that for about a minute, then move the circle out to those you care for, like your wife, kids, and do the same for them, Please help my wife and kids have an awesome day today. Etc. Then move the circle out even bigger. Lastly, spend the remaining 4 minutes on what you need to do today. Ideally focus on the 3 things you really need to do today. Then imagine them already being done and how you feel about that. Really get into it. And then youre done. This is extremely cool to me, especially after reading some studies on priming activity. And this is exactly what Tony Robbins calls this practice, his Priming practice. Priming is basically the psychological concept that when you are exposed to something now, then that effects how you see something right afterwards. Basically, seeing or thinking something positive will help you see positive things easier soon after. And seeing something negative will help you see negative things easier. Tony Robbins said something profound in that interview: Most people have dirt roads to happiness and highways to anxiety. I want to build my happiness highway, and this priming exercise could help. 10 ideas (James Altucher style) James Altucher is a fairly unique guy. He has made tons of money, and went completely bust a few times. And because hes been up and down over and over again hes seen what consistently works for making his life better. One of the things that works for him is coming up with 10 ideas a day. Not to necessarily use those ideas, but its just like idea exercise. The more ideas you come up with the better at coming up with ideas youll likely be. I feel like I need some good ideas in my life right now. So thats it. The three part daily ritual Im implementing. Im waking up in the morning and doing the morning pages. That takes me about 30 minutes. Then I do the priming exercise, which takes me sometimes like 15 minutes because I lose track. Lastly Ill tack on an extra little breathing exercise to the priming, that takes around 5 minutes. So Im sitting quietly for 45-50 minutes in the morning. That doubles as meditation to me. But it feels like more of a productive meditation and I still get the benefit of watching my thoughts. Im just writing them down too. And for the 10 ideas a day. Ive been doing that whenever I can fit it in. In the morning, on a walk, in the car. Sometimes Ill drive and say the ideas out loud while Lindsey writes them down in Evernote for me. But thats the ritual Ill be implementing in 2015. Do you have something youre doing to get better this year?
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 18:31:41 +0000
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